The collection recreated: Turner's watercolours

BG Windus commissioned John Scarlett Davis to paint his collection in Library in his home in Tottenham. Of the thirty-one drawings on display in this Davis's view, twenty can be easily identified, and other two or three tentatively so, while the identity of the others is masked by the oblique angle at which they hang or the reflectivity of the glass covering them. The paintings identified by the art historian, Eric Shanes, are listed below. The painting by Scarlett Davis is now in the British Museum.

The Arts Union 1839 writing about the watercolours in the Windus collection by JMW Turner:It is, in all events, utterly impossible to inspect these drawings without being satisfied of his wonderful genius. He is largely indebted to Mr Windus for determining a matter about which - strangely - there is some doubt, for many just critics and sensible persons turn, dissatisfied, from what they consider the exaggerated deformities of his later works. We are not of those who do so; we can see in his wildest perpetrations proofs of the highest talent, and believe he has painted nothing he had not seen - nothing that is not TRUE. In this collection, however, while there is ample to maintain his right to rank as the first among living artists, and scarcely second to any among the dead, there is not one of which the least imaginative, or the most jealous of altering fact, can for a moment disapprove.

The paintings listed below have been identified in the watercolour BG Windus commissioned in 1835 from John Scarlett Davis The Library at Tottenham, the seat of B. G. Windus, Esq

Right wall: from Right to LeftThe England and Wales series:

Top row: ExeterEntrance to Fowey HarbourRichmond [from the moors]Okehampton, Devonshire

On the same wall beyond the door, and partly hidden by it, are two drawings which given the hanging of works on this side of the room and the facing-wall, would also appear to be England and Wales watercolours.

Top RowMalvern Abbey and GateCoast from Folkestone to Dover? StoneyhurstHoly Island

Bottom row:Either side of the wall beneath them appear to be the Southern Coast series drawings of(right) Minehead(left) Corfe Castle

Left hand wallThe identities of the furthest seven drawings on this wall are obscured by reflections and the angle at which they hang, but many of the paintings closest to the left edge of the painting have been identified.

The Southern Coast series:

At the edge of the painting:Top row: unidentifiedBottom row: Teignmouth

To the right of the above are:Top row: Bow and Arrow CastleBottom row: Land's End (untraced)

To the left of the fireplace is:Osterspey and Feltzen on the Rhine

Over the fireplace is the large 1818 watercolour of Hastings from the sea

I am now engaged on a very difficult subject, the Interior of the Library of Mr Windus,who has it filled with about fifty Turners, and when you come to town​we will go down and see him (he lives in Tottenham), and I can ensure you a treat.John Scarlett Davis

To complete the watercolour Scarlett Davis included Windus's son, William, and daughter, Mary.